FCC Chair Brendan Carr has taken lots of actions to designed to punish broadcasters that have behaved inappropriately by his lights: he has opened an investigation into a broadcaster reporting on the location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions; responded to Comcast, which allegedly "impl[ied] that [Kilmar] Abrego Garcia was merely a law abiding U.S. citizen" and ignored facts about Garcia, by suggesting that Comcast had engaged in news distortion; suggested narrowing the category of bona fide news programs that are exempt from the equal time requirement; suggested that the splicing together of two different portions of Trump's January 6, 2021 speech at the Ellipse may constitute news distortion and/or a broadcast hoax; and opened other news distortion investigations. And most famously, he threatened broadcasters who carry Jimmy Kimmel's show. But his post yesterday responding to a Trump post is notable for its brazenness.
The Fog of War and War Reporting
On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that, according to U.S. officials, an Iranian missile struck and damaged five Air Force refueling planes that were on the ground at an airbase in Saudi Arabia. Yesterday Trump claimed on Truth Social that the Wall Street Journal's reporting was inaccurate, as "Four of the five [planes] had virtually no damage" and "One had slightly more damage." And then in language that somehow no longer seems shocking, he said that the reporters involved "are truly sick and demented people."
